


Chiaroscuro

by Cold_Gold_Heart



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, No Plot/Plotless, Well not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 14:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12559900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cold_Gold_Heart/pseuds/Cold_Gold_Heart
Summary: Kuroko learns that a shadow isn't nothing, and that shadows make the light better.





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I tried to proofread. However, if there are still any glaring mistakes that really piss you off, please let me know! :)

Kuroko was always part of the background.

Well, not always. His mother showered him with attention when she wasn’t busy working, and his father was always kind enough to send him a gift after being abroad for months, but there was much to be desired from the other people who were around him every day. He was just too easy to forget. His teacher hadn’t noticed when he was absent, his classmates forgot to give him a role in the play and the librarian asked him if he had recently transferred to the school, even if he had been hanging out there since first grade.

Well, he had books anyway. He was perfectly content with his life.

Then, he discovered basketball. _This_ was how he would step out of the shadows. He would stop hiding in the background and reveal himself to be the best basketball player in history. He was ten years old and an avid reader—if kids could kill dragons and save princesses, he could surely become a great basketball player, right?

There was no mini basketball club in the neighborhood or anywhere near him. He tried to join the kids who played right before lunchtime, but they never acknowledged him. If he did get to join a game, they never passed the ball to him and whenever he asked them to teach them, they would say that they would do it later, but they always forgot.

Hoping to find a better passion, where someone might discover him, he decided to start painting. He did at a park, where there were tables and chairs for people to sit and talk while enjoying nature. Apparently, many others had the same idea as him, so he was usually surrounded by artists who were much better than him. He wasn’t good at painting, and he didn’t like it. There seemed to be something missing from all of his simplistic artwork even if he used bright colors that should have been attractive. They all seemed almost as invisible as he was, but then…

“Oh! I know! Add some contrast to your painting!” Kuroko’s first reaction was to almost fall from the bench. It was rare that someone else’s presence surprised him. It was usually the other way around. Plus, he was more observant than most, so he generally knew what was going on around him. He couldn’t believe his painting had been taking up so much space in his mind. His sky-blue eyes met sparkling brown ones. He recognized the boy immediately. It was Ogiwara-kun—he sometimes joined the other kids playing basketball at the nearby court, and he also enjoyed painting abstract art. Kuroko had no idea what his paintings were supposed to be, but he could perceive a cheerfulness in the brown-haired boy’s messy artworks.

“Thank you for the suggestion.” He returned his attention back to the painting, wondering _how_ he was supposed to add contrast. Ogiwara-kun seemed to be able to tell that Kuroko was having trouble and plopped next to him.

“Y’know, you should add darker colors to the background,” Ogiwara-kun said, sounding very serious, with his hand on his chin, elbow propped on the table.

“I don’t want to add dark colors.” That would ruin the whole point of his painting after all. Although Kuroko was pale and had light-colored hair, he felt as if he blended with shadow. He didn’t want his painting to be the same. “Bright colors are more attractive.”

“Eh… eh?” Ogiwara-kun had a confused look on his face. “But you need dark colors to, y’know, create a balance! Bright colors are more likely to be seen, but dark colors are really important too!”

Kuroko bit his lip. He knew dark colors were important, but why…

_Why wasn’t he?_

“I’m probably going to give up on this painting anyway.” Sadness tugged on Kuroko’s lips and forced them into a smile.

Ogiwara-kun frowned at this, but instead of telling him “giving up is bad!” like Kuroko expected, he nodded and stood up, lending him a hand. “If you’re not going to paint, then let’s play basketball!”

Although he was confused by the offer, Kuroko accepted. No one had ever asked to play basketball with him. There was no way he would question it. He took Ogiwara-kun’s hand and stood up.

“I know you’re normally on the court near this park, but that’s usually full, so let’s go to the one there!” Ogiwara-kun pointed towards the area bustling with life, full of shops and noise.

Kuroko nodded and tried to keep up with Ogiwara-kun, who was almost sprinting there. Before Kuroko could beg him to slow down, Ogiwara-kun looked back at him, nodded, then started walking. Kuroko mumbled his thanks, as he followed Ogiwara-kun through the streets of Tokyo.

“It’s empty!” Ogiwara-kun wailed. “I thought my friends would be there with a ball already… Oh wait, that’s tomorrow. Whoops!” He chuckled.

“Do we even have a ball?” Kuroko asked. He may not be much, but he was somewhat sensible.

“I forgot!” Ogiwara-kun cried. “Oh, c’mon!” As he continued with his antics, Kuroko spotted a ball lying at the corner of the court. He jogged toward it. “I found one.”

“Oh! Yuuma did say that he would leave it!” Ogiwara-kun grinned. “I forgot that…” He added sheepishly. “I also forgot to ask for your name! I’m Ogiwara Shigehiro. I saw you watching when we were playing in the court near the park.”

Kuroko bowed. “Kuroko Tetsuya. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Okay! We can play now! Pass the ball!”

Kuroko was terrible at basketball, but somehow, with someone like Ogiwara-kun who could see him, it was fun. Ogiwara-kun never made fun of him whenever he messed up and taught him with patience. Even more amazing was how Ogiwara-kun offered to play again _tomorrow_. Kuroko simply couldn’t believe that he was willing to put up with him as he accepted the offer.

On the way back home, he wondered how someone like Ogiwara-kun noticed him. After all, Ogiwara-kun was full of light. His ever-present smile, the bounce in his step and the brightness of his eyes made him seem like the sun, burning and bright and giving life. Kuroko was nothing like that. He was unnoticeable, forgettable and boring. He was the night sky without the stars. He remembered that every time a classmate passed him without saying their hellos, he remembered when their homeroom adviser was surprised that no, Kuroko did not have a perfect attendance record in fifth grade (he was sick for one day), and he remembered that when he decides to try playing with the others on the basketball court again and is ignored.

This is when he realizes…

_I am a shadow_.

And what was good about a shadow?

Although he loved basketball, playing with Ogiwara-kun and getting better and better each day, he could never find any reason for a shadow to be a good thing. When Ogiwara-kun leaves, he thinks again about being a shadow, separated from the light.  

He hopes to find something good about being a shadow in junior high, but nothing good happens. Although Aomine-kun is a good friend and partner (his smiles are just like Ogiwara-kun’s—bright like the sun), they will never stand on the same court. He will never be able to fulfill his promise to Ogiwara-kun.

But Akashi-kun seems to think there is something good about being a shadow, so he tries to believe it too.

As a shadow, he needs a light, and he’s happy that Aomine-kun is his light. He realizes that being a shadow means you never have to be alone. Now, he has teammates who depend on him and who let him support them. With his passes, he connects the team together.

However, being a shadow means you _cannot_ be alone and that you _cannot_ control the light. The light always controls the shadow. Where the light is, so is the shadow, and if the light disappears, the shadow is useless. No matter what Kuroko does, he cannot bring Aomine-kun, the light, back if he doesn’t want to come back.

Aomine-kun stops attending practice, stops having fun when playing basketball, stops needing his shadow. And slowly, so does the whole team.

Akashi-kun (but not the one he knows) declares that teamwork is nothing but a hindrance to the Generation of Miracles. Kuroko no longer connects the team—he is no longer important.

He is a shadow. Invisible, useless…

No, he is no longer a shadow.

He is simply nothing.

He goes to Meikou. He needs to apologize to his first light—the one who believed that dark colors were just as important as the light ones. The dark color he used to be had disappeared and now he was colorless. He couldn’t do anything about it, and it was all his fault, and he is just so, so sorry…

Ogiwara-kun isn’t there, but Mochida-kun tells him that Ogiwara-kun still believed in him. And who is Kuroko to say Ogiwara-kun is wrong?

_“But you need dark colors to, y’know, create a balance! Bright colors are more likely to be seen, but dark colors are really important too!”_ Yes, it’s true. The Generation of Miracles were the light. They were seen and revered by all, but there was no balance.

Yes, there was something missing from the painting.

Shadow.

Although the dark colors were in the background, they never _faded_ into the background. They accentuated the light… They made the painting more beautiful…

So, with the rest of Seirin, Kuroko will fight to repaint the picture. His colors will never fade. He will connect his former teammates again.

Because he is the shadow, the shadow that will help the light. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! I've been having a really hard time writing lately, and this was the product of me forcing myself to write ~~even if no one will read it~~. Please tell me what you thought in the comments! (Seriously, even if you want to say "Bitch, this was the worst thing I've ever read my 20 years of life, you should kill yourself", I don't care. I just want to know what you thought.) Was the pacing too fast? Was the story stupid? Wait, is this thing even considered a story? Haha, thank you once again for reading this!


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